News

Napster returns to free music with ad-supported site

By LC Angell ● Monday, May 1, 2006

Facing Apple’s increasing dominance in the digital music world, Napster has shifted to an advertising-supported model that allows visitors to its website to listen to any of the 2 million songs in its catalog for free. But unlike the original Napster, which famously offered unauthorized song downloads, visitors can currently only listen to a song five times—after that, the track must be purchased for 99 cents or visitors must sign up for a subscription plan ($10-$15/month). “Napster clearly had to find something different,” says American Technology Research analyst P.J. McNealy. “But until the device market for non-iPods picks up, Napster faces an uphill battle.”

Comments

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Gatta say its pretty sweet so far and with my wide open musical tastes I don’t think I could ever listen to each album once let alone 5 times.

Posted by nosedive51 on May 1, 2006 at 11:56 AM (CDT)

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Dear Napster,

Please give up. You’ve already lost.

Thanks.
Everyone else in the world.

Posted by Kevin on May 1, 2006 at 3:20 PM (CDT)

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Kinda funny how Disney is one of the sponsors.

Posted by Geffrey on May 1, 2006 at 3:36 PM (CDT)

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Allo
The Napster is good and I am soon to be doing the linking of the songs to the web page which is belonging to me

Go Napster!

Posted by Cotten on May 1, 2006 at 3:52 PM (CDT)

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now before i download this, can these tracks be burned after a single listen and thus stripped of their DRM, and then loaded to iTunes?

Posted by Bradley on May 1, 2006 at 4:11 PM (CDT)

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In other news, sales and downloads of audio capture program increase.

Posted by smorr on May 1, 2006 at 5:17 PM (CDT)

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i wonder if i could use napster and then just find a program to record the audio thats playing :)....NOT

Posted by jfriend33 on May 1, 2006 at 8:14 PM (CDT)

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I’m trying it out right now, and the audio quality’s not something to get too excited about—definitely not CD-quality or anything. This is more Napster’s way to attract people to its subscription services than to really promote free music.

Posted by MICHAE2414 on May 1, 2006 at 11:33 PM (CDT)

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yeah but why go to the hassle to record it when you could just download it illegally from limewire? I think napster realizes that very few people are going to be recording it using a program.

Posted by dave on May 1, 2006 at 11:34 PM (CDT)

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The mess-up is that this is US only and that really ticks me off. iTunes isn’t US only and that’s what differentiates the two.

Posted by Simran on May 2, 2006 at 4:05 AM (CDT)

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This seems like a really nice way to preview CDs before buying and/or. . .uhh. . .illegally downloading. Still, if you’re going to buy an $18 CD or use up your bandwidth this seems like a good way to know what you’re in for. [Although, if the audio quality is crap, it’s not a good tool at all: crappy audio quality can make good songs sound horrible.]